I’m coming to you this month from seat 6E in the first-class cabin of flight AA1229 from San Diego to Dallas where I’ll catch a flight home to Tallahassee. I’ve been traveling a lot this summer. There’s a lot of Retention Deficit Disorder out there, and I’m the guy subscription membership programs call to treat it.. We’ve had a tumultuous … Continued
Connect Your Members to Dramatically Increase your Retention Rates
Every Tuesday morning, my wife and I participate in an interval training group at the running track. The group is led by a Hall of Fame track coach who will help you become a faster runner by running fast-paced intervals once or twice a week. But my wife goes to chitchat with her friends in the group. I started going … Continued
There’s a Lot More to Retention Than Value, and That’s Good News for You
It’s expensive to deliver value. Solutions to your members’ problems are expensive to conceive, test, and produce on a regular basis. It should be good news that members are looking for a mix of benefits and aren’t focused solely on value. Members want to be part of something bigger than themselves. Memberships that are about having a greater impact have … Continued
Lots and Lots of Value May Retain Members, But It’s Not a Business Plan
It didn’t take long for the Movie Pass bubble to bust. It offered unlimited movies for $9.95 a month. Movie Pass paid theaters full-price admissions for the tickets, and Movie Pass members took full advantage. Now Movie Pass is out of cash and dying. They attracted the wrong crowd of members. They attracted takers — those who love taking advantage … Continued
Retention Deficit Disorder and How to Cure It
Does your membership attract as many new members as it should? Do you retain at least 70% of your new members for more than six months? Are your membership numbers growing to meet your goals? You are suffering from Retention Deficit Disorder. I’ll explain the treatment in detail, but first let me tell you how I came to discover this … Continued
Changing Your Member’s Mental Picture of Your Membership
Wow, that cartoon. What happens from the first image to the second? Does the guy get killed? Can you see the ax swing in your mind’s eye? Where does the ax hit? In this illustration, you did the killing, not the cartoonist. In your mind, you moved the ax. And, everyone I’ve shown this to has told me a different … Continued
Are You Disappointing Your Members?
What you sell damn sure better live up to your sales promises. There’s no retention without fulfillment. I had a great discussion with a client today. We are creating a new onboarding product that will become a “gift with purchase” that we can offer to increase sales conversions. He asked me, “If this video is longer than a few minutes, … Continued
The No. 1 Flaw in Membership and Subscription Marketing Today
Did you wake up this morning hoping for a webinar? You’ve gone all week without one. Perhaps your spouse used to give you webinars, but no longer. Then there was that one vendor who always offered webinars, but they don’t even do it anymore. Disappointing? No, you didn’t wake up hoping for a webinar. And neither did your members. And … Continued
It’s Easy to Make Your Membership Complicated. Simplification Is Difficult and Important
Pointless. I was writing, printing, and mailing a 24-page full-color newsletter for 36 people. That’s all that signed up. It was so humiliating to write and preparing a newsletter for only 36 members. Expensive too — although each member paid $199.00 monthly, total dues collected was not enough to cover my production and fulfillment costs with so few members. Membership … Continued
Amazon Prime vs. Costco Membership: Which Has Higher Retention, and What Does it Mean for You?
Amazon Prime now has more members than Costco and higher retention. But which company is the best for you to emulate? Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos reported that Amazon Prime membership exceeded 100 million members. At $99.00 annually, this has turned into a huge profit center. But there’s more. Prime members spend more than four times more than non-Prime customers with … Continued